As with any addiction, you tend to take notice of things around you that will feed that addiction, oftentimes things that others overlook. Like a perfect pair of trees, a discarded hank of rope, or an old thread injector . . . and thus begins my saga:
While biking some local trails a few months ago and noting all the prime locations for some stealth hanging, I came upon the remnants of an old building I'd seen several times before. It appears to have been a small house and maybe a shop or business sometime toward the end of it's usefull life. Now completely open to the weather and anyone or thing that dares to explore it, it still contains scattered broken bits of it's once usefull contents. Among the wreckage, two ancient thread injectors were clearly visible from the open doorway. One, tossed to the floor and half covered by falling pieces of the loft above; the other, still mounted to it's work table in a far corner. Everything about the building seemed so far gone that I didn't think much about it until later reading a thread on this forum touting the merits of the older, simpler, well-built machines . . . Hmmmmm
I contacted an individual who oversees maintenance of the property including the small family cemetary nearby, and he explained that there is talk of tearing the structure down in the near future to lessen the liability of someone getting hurt in it. I mentioned that I saw all the junk still inside and he responded that after they burn the pile, they'll have to haul off or bury what's left. `Nuff said! I waited for the weather to cool enough to slow down any snakes, and rode my Trek and DIY trailer back to the spot. Here's a look at the building.
Here's what I found:
The machine still mounted to the table was perhaps a `60's model, unidentifiable and lacking any lables or numbers. It was missing about half its parts. Although powered by a large motor slung below the table, the motor was seized and appeared to be a redneck hack replacement.
After uncovering the other machine on the floor, I immediately recognized it as a Singer-201. It appeared to be intact and complete, but it was so crusty & rusty that I wondered if it had been used as a boat anchor after being disgarded. Every piece of this machine was rusted solidly in place, and it showed no signs of ever intending to move again. Second-guessing myself all the way, I loaded the small behemoth on my bike trailer, while making very accurate predictions that my wife would indeed call it "a bucket of ugly!" I was not wrong.
Further back in the building, I found an old Singer sewing desk with the treadle-type of motor control. The machine was long gone, but the motor on this one was free and had a Singer badge on its side. All this was way too big for me to haul out on a bike, so I left it alone . . . (for now.)
Well, here's the 201, tarped and ready to be pedaled out of the woods.
Here's what I found when I got it home:
Yupp, that's a 1956 Singer-201 boat anchor. The more I looked at it, the more I wondered why I even bothered to rescue it. But on a whim, I pulled the motor and rigged it up to an extension cord -- amazingly, it hummed right along!
Since I was blown away that the motor still worked, I decided to see if there's any chance of hope for the rest of the machine. And so the tedious deconstruction begins . . . Hand me that big can of WD-40, will ya?!?
Anyone want to hinge a bet on whether or not this machine will ever inject some thread into one of my hammocks? I'll letcha know what I find . . .
-Klauss
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